


We'll End it on Our Terms

by virdant



Series: Hitman!AU [3]
Category: Johnny's Entertainment, KAT-TUN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Off-screen Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 22:14:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/614936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virdant/pseuds/virdant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Side-story in <a href="http://virdant.livejournal.com/tag/multi-part:%20hitman%21au">Hitman!AU</a>.   <i>Before Kiritani Shuuji, there was a boy named Kamenashi Kazuya who liked to play pretend.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	We'll End it on Our Terms

**Author's Note:**

> While this takes place before [Choices](http://virdant.livejournal.com/40911.html) and [Flowers](http://virdant.livejournal.com/41366.html), it's best to read at least Choices before, though I recommend reading both. Probably wouldn't hurt to read [Within These Voices](http://zerofairytails.livejournal.com/16976.html), [](http://reiicharu.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://reiicharu.livejournal.com/)**reiicharu** 's remix from 2011, either.

**Title:** We'll End it on Our Terms  
 **Author:** [](http://virdant.livejournal.com/profile)[**virdant**](http://virdant.livejournal.com/)  
 **Length:** 4,710 words; one-shot  
 **Rating:** R  
 **Genre:** AU, gen  
 **Pairing:** Taguchi/Kamenashi  
 **Summary:** Side-story in [Hitman!AU](http://virdant.livejournal.com/tag/multi-part:%20hitman%21au). _Before Kiritani Shuuji, there was a boy named Kamenashi Kazuya who liked to play pretend._  
 **Warning:** Off-screen death, guns, mild gang violence. Implications of: potential mental illness  
 **Notes:** While this takes place before [Choices](http://virdant.livejournal.com/40911.html) and [Flowers](http://virdant.livejournal.com/41366.html), it's best to read at least Choices before, though I recommend reading both. Probably wouldn't hurt to read [Within These Voices](http://zerofairytails.livejournal.com/16976.html), [](http://reiicharu.livejournal.com/profile)[**reiicharu**](http://reiicharu.livejournal.com/) 's remix from 2011, either.

For Rei. Merry Christmas, Rei. Remember that all of us have to start somewhere.

  


**We’ll End it on Our Terms**  
  
 _Before Kiritani Shuuji, there was a boy named Kamenashi Kazuya who liked to play pretend._

  
  
  


*****

  
  
Kamenashi Kazuya had always been different as a child. Gangly, not as prone to physical activities as his brothers, but able to shed skins like a snake. One day he slipped out of the house and spent hours as a boy named Akihito, wandering the streets and making friends. When he got home, his parents cried and his brothers wanted to know where Kazuya had been.  
  
“Sleeping,” he had said, because Kazuya had spent the day quietly slumbering inside Akihito, tasting the world around him as if in a dream. “Just sleeping.”  
  
For years, Kazuya played at Akihito. When he grew weary of Akihito, he shed that skin for a boy named Yuya, named Kosaku, named Shizuku. As they smiled and went about their day, Kazuya slowly learned to watch instead of sleep, to start whispering: “Don’t, I don’t want to go there, can’t we go to the park instead?”  
  
When Kazuya was sixteen, he played a boy named Odagiri Ryu on the streets. When Odagiri Ryu met Yabuki Hayato—  
  


*

  
  
Yabuki Hayato was actually Akanishi Jin, but Akanishi shed that skin quickly when he got Kamenashi Kazuya into his crowd. He dragged Odagiri by the arm through alleyways and into a dark building before he finally stopped. “Look, Odagiri, there’s something you need to know.”  
  
“The fuck is this shit?” Odagiri retorted. The sharp words were comfortable in his mouth—unlike when it was Kazuya or Yuya or Kosaku speaking. “I thought you were better than joining some gang.”  
  
He heard a click of a gun. Odagiri sneered, but even Odagiri wasn’t brash enough to fight against uneven odds. Kazuya inside Odagiri made sure of this by stirring enough to whisper: “Don’t fight, Ryu-kun.”  
  
“Please don’t do anything stupid,” Hayato said, but it wasn’t Hayato anymore. Kamenashi Kazuya recognized another person climbing out of a skin, just as Odagiri Ryu recognized that Hayato wasn’t quite the same anymore. “Kamenashi.”  
  
Odagiri reeled back, slipped away from Kazuya’s grasp and left Kazuya in the middle of a crowd of gangsters—not that many, after all, just some boys—Akanishi Jin and a boy with a smirk and a boy with a gun and a grin too bright for his face.  
  
“We could use somebody like you,” the boy with the smirk said. “And I think that you want to do something more, _Odagiri_ -kun.”  
  
Kazuya squared his shoulders and said, “Kamenashi is fine.”  
  


*

  
  
From them on, Akanishi—it wasn’t Hayato anymore, not after Kamenashi let them strip Odagiri away—called him Kame. Kame-chan, sometimes; Kame-kun, other times; and sometimes he dropped the formalities altogether and just snapped, “Look, Kame—”  
  
The boy with the smirk was Ueda Tatsuya, and for a while he used Kamenashi, before he decided that was too troublesome and called him “Kame,” same as all the others.  
  
The boy with the gun was Taguchi Junnosuke, and when nobody was listening he pressed his cheek to Kamenashi’s and whispered, “Kazuya.”  
  
Kazuya, small inside of Kamenashi’s too-large skin, let him.  
  


*

  
  
Ueda liked Odagiri more than he liked Kamenashi. Odagiri was brash yet refined, able to do reconnaissance work in all the places where Ueda needed somebody. Odagiri was autonomous, and when the situation changed, there was Kamenashi just under the surface, ready to take control.  
  
Kazuya didn’t mind slipping Odagiri on. He was fun, even if it was different, running jobs without Yabuki Hayato. And at the end of the day, as he came back, Ueda would say, “Kame,” with expectation and Odagiri would slip away to leave only Kamenashi, Kazuya curled just underneath.  
  
“Want to play a game?” Taguchi asked once, Odagiri neatly folded and tucked away in the recesses of Kamenashi’s mind.  
  
“Game?”  
  
“Sure,” Taguchi said cheerily. “Let’s play hide and seek. Kazuya can hide, and I’ll seek!”  
  
Kamenashi laughed, because Kazuya was better at hiding than anybody he knew. “You want me to hide?”  
  
“I’ll even give you a handicap!”  
  
Kamenashi snorted. “This will be easy.”  
  
“Some things are,” Taguchi agreed, and handed him a knife. “But those aren’t the things you should work on.”  
  
Odagiri surged to the surface the minute Kamenashi’s fingers clenched around the knife; Taguchi was faster, twisting Odagiri’s arm around and pinching until he dropped the knife, snarling.  
  
“Let Kazuya out,” Taguchi said, smiling amiably the entire time. “This isn’t your place, Odagiri-kun.”  
  
“Fuck you,” Odagiri spat, keeping still to keep Taguchi from twisting further. “You think you can tell me what to do?”  
  
Taguchi pinched, and Kazuya-in-Odagiri whispered, “Please, stop. Let me out. I don’t want him to hurt you.”  
  
But Kamenashi slid out as Odagiri slipped away. Taguchi chirped, “Better,” and set the knife into Kamenashi’s hand.  
  


*

  
  
“Have you played Marco Polo?”  
  
Kamenashi blinked, said, “What?” and reached for the switch-knife he kept in his pocket.  
  
Taguchi grinned at him from across the table. “I close my eyes and say Marco, and you say Polo, and then I try to find you!”  
  
“Isn’t that a bit . . .” For a moment, Kamenashi thought about wording things tactfully, and then decided to let Odagiri loose. “Childish?”  
  
Taguchi laughed. “Gotta enjoy life to its fullest!” He clenched his eyes shut and crowed, “Marco!”  
  
Odagiri eyed him, backed away slowly, and didn’t say anything.  
  
“Kazuya is so quiet,” Taguchi said, smiling, “But I can still hear you calling,” and reached unerringly until he caught the shorter boy by the shoulders.  
  
Kazuya shifted.  
  
“I’ll always find you,” Taguchi said, eyes tightly shut. “Even if you’re lost. As long as you’re calling, I’ll always find you, Kazuya.”  
  


*

  
  
Sometimes, when Odagiri got lost, Kamenashi stepped out, flipped open the switch knife, and brought Kazuya back to where Ueda hid them. Then he woke Kazuya and they met Taguchi in the shooting range. Kamenashi spat, “I thought you’d always find me?”  
  
Taguchi stared back, eyes wide and thoughtful, one hand loosely clutching a handgun. He reached forward with his free hand, touched Kamenashi’s cheek where a bruise was slowly forming. “Would you like to learn how to shoot, Kazuya?”  
  
“Kamenashi is fine.”  
  
Taguchi said, “Does it hurt? Is that what’s making you all curt?” He laughed—Kamenashi didn’t. He gestured at the gun with his chin, smiling amiably. “Pick it up and try it out. Watch out for the recoil.”  
  
Inside, Kazuya recoiled, said, “No guns, please, no guns.”  
  
“No guns,” Kamenashi said.  
  
Taguchi pointed the gun at Kamenashi’s forehead and said, “Kazuya, pick up the gun.”  
  
Kazuya whispered, “I don’t want to, this is just a game, it’s not real, I don’t want to shoot anybody.”  
  
Kamenashi said, “I said no.”  
  
Taguchi looked at him and said, “I think I might actually believe you.” He swung the gun towards the paper target and fired—once, twice, three times—leaving a perfect hole in the center.  
  
Kamenashi snorted and clapped.  
  
Taguchi asked, “What will you do when you’re too far away to use that knife, Kamenashi?”  
  
He said, “If I’m doing my job right—” and slid into Odagiri Ryu, who smirked—“then I’ll never be far away.”  
  


*

  
  
Odagiri couldn’t get close enough to their target, but Yuya could. The skin was a little dusty, a little tight at the seams, but Kamenashi Kazuya squeezed his way into Ishida Yuya and found the schedule of their next target with a soft, shy smile.  
  
“He likes blondes,” Kamenashi relayed, the five of them sitting at a table. “Likes them long-legged and pretty in pink.”  
  
“Guess that’s my cue,” Taguchi said with a grin. “You’re too fat to look good in pink, Jin.” He disappeared with Koki for a few hours and when they came back, Taguchi was wearing a pink dress and more weaponry than Kamenashi had ever seen him wearing.  
  
“Does this dress make me look fat, Kame?” he asked, casually.  
  
Kamenashi eyed the knife he could see strapped between the fake breasts and said, “Yes.”  
  
Taguchi came back with the dress more red than pink. He sat in the shower for a long time, staring at his hands, shaking the entire time. Kamenashi opened the door and stepped in. Kazuya perched on the toilet, just watching.  
  
“People are different from paper,” Taguchi said, finally, when the room was thick with steam. “More tissue, I think.”  
  
Kazuya said, “Taguchi?”  
  
“You should call me Junnosuke.”  
  
And because Kazuya knew about putting on skins, he turned away and whispered, “Your fingers will turn to prunes if you stay in the water for too long.”  
  
(Kamenashi walked into the shower, took his hands and said, “Junnosuke.” Junnosuke shuddered and said, “This is for us,” and Kamenashi didn’t need to know that he was talking about Kazuya, not Kamenashi.)  
  


*

  
  
Taguchi stopped pushing Kazuya to pick up a gun. Instead Kamenashi learned to use a knife, learned to wield it better than Taguchi could. In return, Taguchi went to the shooting range and emptied clip after clip into a paper target.  
  
Sometimes Kazuya sat and watched, legs pulled up this his chest. Other times it was Kamenashi, clutching a knife in his hands that looked so much like Kazuya’s.  
  
“I don’t like going out anymore,” Kazuya whispered. “I don’t want to know that when I go out, people die.”  
  
Taguchi aimed, fired, and asked, “Odagiri get into another fight?”  
  
There was a long pause, and when Taguchi turned, it was Kamenashi sitting, curled in a ball, shaking with frustration. “I wish that Odagiri could rest,” Kamenashi muttered. “He’s played his part.”  
  
Taguchi said, “Would you like me to kill him for you, Kazuya?”  
  


*

  
  
In the end it was Yabuki Hayato holding the knife that killed Odagiri Ryu. No, Kazuya corrected. Not Hayato. Jin-kun.  
  
Akanishi, Kamenashi corrected; Odagiri should have died on our terms, not his. He clenched his hands around a knife, but the knife hadn’t been able to stop Akanishi from cutting Odagiri away from Kamenashi Kazuya.  
  
“It’s alright,” Kazuya sobbed. “It’s alright. I’m alright.”  
  
“If you say so.” Taguchi brushed a hand over Kazuya’s cheek. “I believe you.”  
  
Kazuya took a deep shuddering breath. “It’s fine, Taguchi.” He reached up, clutched at Taguchi’s fingers. “You don’t have to worry about me.”  
  


*

  
  
Kazuya mourned the loss of Odagiri sharply; in response, Kamenashi took them out, slid on an old skin—but this time loss and mourning made it edges where there had only been softness and tenderness and worry. They got into a fist-fight, and Kamenashi was ready to pull the knife out.  
  
Instead, he turned and stalked away, through the lights and noise of a city walking its way to destruction. “Why did you run away?” he snapped.  
  
Kazuya whispered, “I don’t want you to die too.”  
  
“I can protect you,” Kamenashi snarled. “You won’t ever be hurt if you just let me protect you.”  
  
Kazuya’s voice was a soft breath in Kamenashi’s mind. “I don’t want to need your help.”  
  
Kamenashi demanded, “Who else is going to help you?” and slipped away into soft, mild, unassuming Ishida Yuya. “Ryu-chan is gone, Kazu-chan. All that’s left is us. Who will protect us now?”  
  


*

  
  
Kazuya walked home to Taguchi, who was at the range again, emptying a clip into a paper target. For a while he simply sat there, legs folded in. He didn’t say anything, and neither did Taguchi as he replaced the clip, sighted, and fired again.  
  
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Taguchi finally said.  
  
Kazuya said, “I’ve never lost anyone before. I don’t like it.” He felt very young.  
  
They sat in silence. The target with a hole in the middle stared at them. Taguchi said, “Would you like to learn how to shoot?”  
  
This time, Kazuya said, “Yes.”  
  


*

  
  
Perhaps it was out of respect that Taguchi chose to teach Kazuya late at night, when the juniors were mostly gone. Taguchi was teaching a new batch of kids marksmanship—he called them Kisumai, and they called him Junno-senpai and laughed when Taguchi made jokes. Kamenashi liked to spend time with them, liked to tease and flirt and slide into their group like sliding into another skin, but Kazuya preferred the darkness, where there was only him and Taguchi.  
  
Taguchi said, “I didn’t think you’d like to learn with the others around.”  
  
“I don’t mind,” Kazuya said politely. He gestured vaguely with the gun.  
  
Taguchi grinned and reminded him, “First rule. Never point your gun at somebody you don’t want dead.”  
  
“Did you want me dead?” Kazuya asked, thinking of the day in the range, when Taguchi turned a gun on him and told him he had to learn how to shoot.  
  
He said, “Not you, Kazuya.”  
  
“Then,” he looked away, “why?”  
  
“I’ll protect you,” he said. “Even if it means protecting you from yourself.”  
  


*

  
  
Another night, Taguchi sat and talked while Kazuya aimed and shot.  
  
“Some things are easy,” Taguchi said, teaching him to rock with the gun, how to feel it as an extension of himself, how aim and how to let go. “But those aren’t the things that you should work on.”  
  
“What should I be working on?” Kazuya asked, laughing.  
  
Taguchi grinned back. “Being happy,” he said, and when Kazuya laughed, he murmured, “It’s harder than you’d think.”  
  


*

  
  
“I was thinking,” Ueda said.  
  
“That’s dangerous,” Tanaka Koki muttered. Taguchi didn’t look up from where he was dismantling and reassembling a gun, but grinned widely all the same. Akanishi snickered not very discretely into an elbow.  
  
Ueda glared. “I was thinking,” He repeated, “that we should get somebody into the police.”  
  
Akanishi looked up.  
  
“That’s _really_ dangerous,” Koki said, looking appreciative.  
  
Ueda ignored him. “Can you do it, Kame?”  
  
Kamenashi thought of Odagiri Ryu and said, in a voice he barely recognized as his own, “I don’t think I can make somebody new so quickly.”  
  
Ueda scowled. “I suppose we could send Kosaku…”  
  
Kazuya flinched. Kosaku would die in the police—they would find him and his flimsy excuse of a life and rip him to shreds.  
  
“Give me a few days,” Kamenashi said. “I’ll find somebody to become.”  
  
Ueda nodded. “I want you to practice shooting with the juniors too, Kame. If you’re going to be a police officer, you’re going to need to know how to shoot.”  
  
Taguchi beamed at him. “We’ll have so much fun!”  
  
Kazuya smiled back wanly, feeling sick to his stomach.  
  


*

  
  
Actually, Kazuya didn’t like it when Taguchi was teaching the juniors how to shoot. Didn’t like it when Taguchi turned away from him to guide a pack of insufferable brats. In those moments, he slid Kamenashi back on and wished, _yearned_ , really, for Odagiri Ryu again.  
  
So it surprised him when he reached for Kamenashi and came up with Takano Kyohei instead. He hadn’t thought it was possible for him to find another skin to slide on—he thought that he lost all of them when Odagiri died—but here was Kyohei, with the restless rage of youth, waiting to be unleashed.  
  
Takano Kyohei wasn’t quite like Odagiri—wasn’t as sharp, as jaded or worn down or desperate—but Kazuya felt a thrill of exhalation all the same when Kyohei snapped, “Who cares about that nonsense, Junno?” and Taguchi’s smile flinched for just a second.  
  


*

  
  
“Was that somebody new?”  
  
Kazuya smiled, said, “Who?”  
  
“Today.” Taguchi’s hands were warm on around his. “Kazuya, was that somebody new today, at the range?”  
  
“Why does it matter?” It felt like Kamenashi talking, but it was him, it was Kazuya talking, Kazuya who leaned into Taguchi’s warmth and said, “In the end, we’re all the same.”  
  
“Don’t you see what this means?” Taguchi beamed. “You can do it; you can craft a personality to get into the police with!”  
  
Kazuya shook his head, backed away and shouted, “There is nobody new! There’s nothing left! He’s _gone_.”  
  
And Taguchi reached forward and said, “I see you, Kazuya.”  
  


*

  
  
A few days later, Kamenashi stood in front of the rest of them and said, “I can do it, just give me a few more days.”  
  
Kazuya, inside, screamed, “You’re a liar, Kamenashi. You’re a liar and none of us are going into that police station. None of us! Do you hear me? You can’t make us do this! You’re asking for us to _die_.”  
  
Kazuya made his way to the shooting range later that night. He sat there and watched as Taguchi aimed, fired, and asked, “Have you ever watched a horror movie?”  
  
And then, when Kazuya didn’t say anything, continued: “Do you want to watch one?”  
  
Kazuya curled up on Taguchi’s bed while Taguchi browsed through DVDs and finally came up with one that met with his approval. They watched the entire movie on the dim screen of the laptop, and every ten minutes Taguchi reached forward and wriggled the mouse to keep the screensaver from turning on.  
  
Despite that, Taguchi watched raptly. Kazuya stared at the mouse trailing circles over the dark screen. One by one, the protagonists died; Taguchi chortled a little when the movie was over, and then closed the screen, placed it onto the bedside table, and pulled the covers up.  
  
“It wasn’t very scary,” Kazuya murmured.  
  
“Most things usually aren’t, when you step back.”  
  
“Mmm,” Kazuya agreed. He closed his eyes, turned onto his back to lay, shoulder-to-shoulder, next to Taguchi.  
  
“Don’t hide under your shell, Kazuya,” Taguchi said. “Just because you’re a turtle doesn’t mean the only thing worth seeing is your shell.”  
  
Kazuya pressed his cheek to Taguchi’s, whispered, “I don’t know who to be.”  
  
Taguchi said, “Be Kazuya for me.”  
  


*

  
  
When it was just the two of them, Kamenashi admitted, “We’ve never done a job like this for so long. The most has been a day. Maybe two. This will require us to be somebody else for a month, at least.”  
  
Taguchi looked at him and asked, “Are you scared?”  
  
Kamenashi scowled. “I should get started on this thing.” But he didn’t move from where he was lounging on Taguchi’s bed like he owned it.  
  
Taguchi grinned. “We’ve been begging for you to begin!”  
  
Kamenashi snorted. “That was horrible,” he said, but he was smiling. “Sometimes he gets lost.”  
  
“Kazuya?”  
  
“And me. Sometimes we get lost.” He lifted a hand to touch his lips. “And it’s like we’re dreaming.”  
  
“You should pinch yourself if you think you’re dreaming.” Taguchi absently dismantled a gun and reassembled it. “And then you’ll be Kamenashi Kazuya again.” He said, “I like Kamenashi Kazuya more than I liked Odagiri-kun.”  
  
Kamenashi said, “Odagiri Ryu is dead,” and, “Akanishi killed him,” and then, “I wish you had killed him instead. I think you would have been kind about it.”  
  


*

  
  
Kamenashi woke up in Taguchi’s bed, slid out, and sat on the edge of the bed for a long time. Taguchi breathed steadily, like he was still asleep, but Kamenashi suspected that he was a few seconds away from waking properly. He stood, being sure to make just enough noise for Taguchi to realize he wasn’t a threat, and then padded out of the room.  
  
He leaned against the door, just listening to the drone of a fan and the buzz of fluorescent lights. A gaggle of juniors walked by, and he walked with them, laughing and smiling and feeling stretched too-tight over fragile bones.  
  
It was easy—too easy—to slide on a smile and play pretend. But he had never been a police officer—never really wanted to be one either.  
  
He found himself in front of the storeroom. There was muffled cursing—Tanaka Koki was inside, as usual. Kamenashi pushed open the door and demanded, “What does it take to be a police officer?”  
  
Koki looked up, scowling. “Hell if I know,” he snapped back. He turned back to sorting inventory. “Why don’t you ask Akanishi. He’s got that police buddy.”  
  
“I’m asking you, aren’t I?”  
  
“And I’m telling you I don’t know. Why are you asking about this now anyways? Shouldn’t you have started days ago?”  
  
Kamenashi twitched. “I have been. I wanted some outside advice.”  
  
Koki snorted. “Well, all I can tell you is to just be yourself.”  
  


*

  
  
“I don’t like myself,” Kazuya admitted, the two of them watching police procedural show on Taguchi’s bed.  
  
Taguchi asked, “Why not?”  
  
Kazuya shrugged. “Do you ever get tired of smiling?”  
  
He leaned back, long lines sprawled in languid abandon. “Sometimes.”  
  
Kazuya said, “Then…”  
  
He smiled. “But that just means I need to smile more.” His hand was warm on Kazuya’s cheek, his smile fond rather than blinding. “We’re more alike than you think, Kazuya.”  
  


*

  
  
Kamenashi threw himself into creating the perfect police officer. He stayed up late, practiced his marksmanship, took to sauntering down hallways to get the gait right.  
  
Taguchi said, “Ah, Kame-chan is putting in 110% effort, I better do so as well!” and pushed his juniors harder and faster, until if he wasn’t outside preparing for another job, he was in the shooting range with Kisumai or a gaggle of boys he called A.B.C-Z. In return, Kamenashi spent all his waking hours wandering the hallways or talking to Koki about standard weaponry or practicing hand-to-hand with Ueda, and spent all of his nights waiting until Taguchi fell asleep to slip into the shooting range and aim and fire.  
  
“Kazuya?” Taguchi sounded tentative, slipping into the range with a sweater pulled over loose drawstring pants. “Kazuya, have you been here all this time? Come back to bed.”  
  
Kamenashi laughed meanly. “I thought you wanted somebody new to get into the police with.”  
  
Taguchi flinched. “I didn’t mean for you to stop sleeping.”  
  
“And eating.”  
  
Taguchi said, “What?”  
  
“Sleeping and eating,” Kamenashi corrected. He grinned—his eyes felt tight with the effort—“You didn’t think it was just sleep, did you?”  
  
“Kazuya.”  
  
“I’m not Kazuya!” He shook his head furiously. “You want somebody to get into the police, you want me to be Kazuya. I’m not. I haven’t been Kazuya since I met you.”  
  
Taguchi said, “You’ve always been Kazuya.” He reached out, slowly and carefully, like Kamenashi was a wild animal.  
  
“Go away!” He slapped the hand away and ignored the sudden flicker of hurt. “You don’t have the right to try to baby me—you spend all your time with your precious juniors—you don’t get to pick and choose when and how you have me!” He grinned, said, “Maybe I should be Yuya for you,” and felt himself shift inside, until there was only sorrow and frustration instead of rage. “Maybe—”  
  
“You know I don’t want you to pretend to be somebody else!”  
  
“But you want me to go undercover,” he murmured, with Yuya’s sorrow, “You want me to make up a new mask to wear.” He reached for Odagiri’s scorn and only came up with Kyohei—choked on it.  
  
“I want you to be safe; I want you to be able to go in and go out without anybody realizing that you’re not—”  
  
“You don’t get to dictate anything to me when you’re spending all your time with your juniors!” Kamenashi shouted, Kyohei’s righteous rage burning his tongue. He whirled, found himself lifting the gun to point it unerringly at Taguchi.  
  
Taguchi froze. “Kazuya. Don’t. Put the gun down.”  
  
Kamenashi screamed, “I don’t need you; what are you good for; you have to pick between me and them!”  
  
Taguchi murmured, “I will always protect you, Kazuya,” and reached through the layers of Kamenashi and Kyohei and even Yuya and Kosaku and Hiroto until it was just Kazuya, clutching the tattered remnants of Odagiri Ryu around him.  
  


*

  
  
“I’m sorry,” Kamenashi murmured to his shoes. “Please give me some more time.”  
  
Ueda said, “How much longer?”  
  
“Soon,” he said. “I’m almost ready.”  
  
Ueda scowled. “We can get you in whenever you need to. Akanishi pulled some strings.”  
  
He nodded, not looking at the others staring at him. They were counting on him—counting on him to pull out a creature from under his skin and put it on, walk out of safety.  
  
Akanishi snorted. “What are you waiting for?”  
  
Kamenashi jerked his head up, glared, and stalked out to his storeroom of a bedroom in the compound. It was empty—he hadn’t slept there in weeks; he sat down at a small desk and opened a binder full of notes. He read them without taking in the words; he had already memorized everything he needed to know, already practiced walking and talking and shooting—  
  
“There’s something missing.” Kamenashi said, not looking up as the door opened.  
  
“Missing?”  
  
Kamenashi tapped his chest. “In here. He won’t stand up to suspicion. He’s nothing. He’s just empty air and thoughts.”  
  
Taguchi stood behind him. “So give him dreams and heart.” He offered, “Make him more than another shell for Kame-chan to wear.”  
  
Kamenashi laughed shortly, felt something lurch inside him, and muttered, “What heart?”  
  
“Kazuya’s heart.”  
  
Kazuya twisted, pressed Taguchi’s fingers to his cheek, and stared into his eyes. He felt impossibly young. “What if I don’t want to?”  
  


*

  
  
He went to the shooting range, practiced his marksmanship until his arms shook. He wanted to go find Koki, ask him about hardware and outfits and practice sauntering down the hallways to slide in and out of character—police one second and Kamenashi-senpai the next. He wanted—  
  
(Ueda said “You’re ready,” and a voice nothing like his own rasped, “Yes, I can leave tomorrow.”)  
  
Kazuya wanted to stay. Stay in the compound, stay in his room, stay safe, cloistered deep inside Kamenashi, where nobody could find him. Kamenashi coaxed him out, let his arm shift until it was more Kazuya holding the gun and less Kamenashi, felt something deep inside of him relax and un-knot.  
  
“This is him,” he thought.  
  
The part of him that was Kazuya tentatively reached out.  
  
The part of him that was the boy who would become the police officer also reached out.  
  
Kazuya murmured, “Will you give it back, when you’re done with it? My fears, my hopes, my dreams?”  
  
The boy nodded.  
  
“Please don’t be selfish,” Kazuya murmured. He lifted his arm and fired until the clip was empty, slowly and steadily, one shot at a time. He turned then, and met Taguchi’s gaze.  
  
Taguchi said, “I only wanted you safe, Kazuya.”  
  
He said, “I know,” and smiled.  
  


*

  
  
“His name is Shuji. Kiritani Shuji.”  
  
“Can I still call you Kazuya?”  
  
“You can always call me Kazuya.”  
  


*

  
  
“I’ve never been anybody other than Kazuya. Not for so long.”  
  
“Are you scared?”  
  
He reached up, took Taguchi’s hand. “I’m always scared,” he admitted. “I don’t know anything else.”  
  
Taguchi lay down next to him, their shoulders touching, the tips of their fingers touching. “Is Kame-chan scared?”  
  
Kazuya said, “I think he’s scared for me.” For a while they laid there in the dark, and he added, “What if they find me?”  
  
“They won’t.”  
  
Another long pause, and this time Kamenashi whispered, “Will you kill him for me?”  
  
Taguchi’s breath hitched.  
  
“I want it to be on our terms.” He turned so he could stare at Taguchi’s features—the perpetual smile was etched harshly into his face. Kamenashi said, “He’d like it—” he paused, “We’d like it, if it were you.”  
  


*

  
  
That night, Kamenashi went to Taguchi’s room and let him strip the last vestiges of Kamenashi away, until there was only Kazuya, lying there, Taguchi’s hand splayed against his neck.  
  
“Come back,” Taguchi said, softly. “Come back, safe and uncaught, with everything we need from you.”  
  
Kazuya smiled, whispered, “I promise,” and let himself fall until there was nothing of him left, just the skin of Kiritani Shuji stretched tight over empty bones.  
  


*

  
  
_Marco—_  
  
  
end.  
  
  
---  
  
[Long, Rambly, Not-paticularly-coherent post-writing, pre-final-draft, later readcted to be final-draft compliant notes (or: virdant talks about this story while sleep-deprived)](http://virdant.livejournal.com/61608.html)  
[Chemorphesis](http://chemorphesis.ucsd.edu)  
[Masterlist of J&A fanfiction here](http://virdant.livejournal.com/36143.html)  
[Masterlist of fandoms here](http://virdant.livejournal.com/663.html)  



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